Today would have been the 101st birthday of one of country music's greatest guitar pickers, singer and songwriters of his generation -- and, in my book, any generation -- Merle Travis.
Happy birthday, Merle!
Born in Rosewood, Kentucky (that's Muhlenberg County, John Prine fans) in 1917, He performed the song "Tiger Rag" on an Indiana radio show when he was 18 and soon began playing professionally. And he kept at it until his death in 1983.
In 1946 he recorded a "folk" album for Capitol records, Folk Songs of the Hills. But Travis himself wrote several of the "folk songs" here, including several of the songs for which he's best known. One of them, "Sixteen Tons" would become a huge crossover hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford nearly a decade later.
Here's a version by Merle.
Here's Travis' other famous coal-mining song.
Travis on TV in the mid '60s doing a hillbilly gospel blues tune.
And here he is in the '70s showing off his fancy picking. (Sorry, I'm not sure who the other folks are.)
Check out more coal-mining songs, including different versions of "Sixteen Tons" and "Dark as a Dungeon," HERE
It's time for another rootin' tootin' Big Enchilada hillbilly episode. And this one is a salute to the American Cowboy
And remember, The Big Enchilada is officially listed in the iTunes store. So go subscribe, if you haven't already (and gimme a good rating and review if you're so inclined.) Thanks.
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican Nov. 23, 2018
Recently, a music critic and Facebook friend of mine posted something stupid. No, he wasn’t agreeing with President Trump that the solution to forest fires was better raking. “Rock is dead. Who killed it?” he asked, then listed a few suspects, mainly bands he doesn’t care for.
My first reaction: “Oh no, not again.” The whole “rock is dead” debate has popped up again and again throughout the years, ever since the days when Elvis enlisted in the Army, and Buddy, Bopper, and Ritchie fell from the sky. Then there was wimp warrior Don McLean (whom Rolling Stone once dubbed “Nixon’s Dylan”) whimpering about “the day the music died.” Then there was the rise of disco — then hip-hop, then boy bands, then electronica. Then the demise of decent commercial radio, the birth of smartphones and streaming, then — who knows — some impending Bobby Goldsboro revival?
Rock is dead? Not on my watch.
Maybe you do need a metaphorical rake to get rid of some of the rotting foliage on the proverbial floor. But I’m firmly in the Neil Young camp here: “Hey hey. My my/Rock ’n’ roll can never die ...”
But, one might argue, today’s youth care a lot more about dumbed-down pop dreck and other non-rock sounds than actual rock ’n’ roll. Can’t deny that. But I’ll always remember the words of this crusty old guy who worked in The New Mexican’s backshop years ago talking about our beloved wild and primitive sounds: “This stuff is better when it’s coming from the underground.”
And in support of that contention, I offer two recent hard-charging, rocking guitar-centric albums with strong roots in the blues and creative recycling, both of which I’ve been loving a lot lately.
Black Joe Lewis in Santa Fe, Oct. 2012
* The Difference Between Me & You by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. Longtime fans of young Black Joe should immediately realize that this record, released in September, is a back-to-basics move for this Austin band.
It’s true: The Honeybears still have their excellent funky horn section, and a handful of songs here are closer to sweet soul ballads than rump-rousing rock.
And at least one track, the tasty “Suit or Soul?,” sounds so much like some long-lost blaxploitation soundtrack, I wouldn’t be surprised if it showed up on some episode of The Deuce. But the overall sound of Difference is raw and rowdy, with roots stretching back to Bo Diddley and Howlin’ Wolf.
Then there are tunes like “She Came Onto Me,” which has menacing echoes of ascended Fat Possum masters like R.L. Burnside, T-Model Ford, and Junior Kimbrough; “Hemmin’ & Hawin’,” which owes its lead hook to ZZ Top; and “Girls on Bikes,” which justifies the Diddley comparison above.
And in the category of strange cover songs that are better than the originals, Lewis and band do a version of Wilco’s “Handshake Drugs.” Wilco’s original, on the album A Ghost Is Born, is a lilting, pleasant little tune built around acoustic guitar and piano, colored by psychedelic electro-squiggles. Black Joe’s version is a ferocious ride into paranoia and insanity.
Lewis, by the way, is the second African-American singer (that I know of) who’s covered a Wilco song. A few years ago J.C. Brooks & The Uptown Sound did a rough-hewn, soulful version of “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.” What can I say? Jeff Tweedy is a soul man.
* See You in Miami by Charlie Pickett. Charlie Pickett & The Eggs was one of the coolest bands of the 1980s who I never heard until 20 years after they’d broken up. It wasn’t until Bloodshot Records released an amazing Pickett compilation called Bar Band Americanus in 2008. That one ended up on my Top 10 list that year.
But those of us who haven’t been able to catch the occasional Pickett gig in Florida have never heard another peep out of Pickett — who jettisoned his musical career to become a lawyer all those years ago — since that greatest non-hits collection 10 years ago.
Until now.
The good news is that See You in Miami picks right up from Pickett’s music when he went off to law school. He still does songs that sound like ZZ Top (them again!) trying to rewrite Exile on Main Street. (Pickett has said in interviews that his favorite period in rock was the Stones’ Mick Taylor era.) R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, who produced an Eggs album in the ’80s, supplies the lead guitar on several songs.
Starting off with “What I Like About Miami,” the joyful ode to his adopted hometown and its beaches, nightlife, empanadas, and Cuban girls, which could be a candidate for some future Miami tourism commercial, the album is full of south Florida references.
But not everything here is pretty girls and Cuban delicacies. “Bullshit Is Goin On” is a slow, menacing, and soulful protest against political skulduggery, while “So Long Johnny,” written by Buck, is a lament for Johnny Salton, a former Eggs guitarist who died of liver cancer in 2010. The “Spirit of Johnny Salton” is credited for “inspiration guitar” on the song.
The longest song here, the near-seven-minute “Four Chambered Heart,” is fortunately one of the strongest on Miami. Inspired by The Dream Syndicate, a neo-psychedelic 1980s band from California, after the four-minute mark it morphs into an instrumental version of Television’s “Marquee Moon.”
Like other Charlie-come-lately fans, I wish I could have seen Pickett & The Eggs tear up the stage in some Florida dive back in the day. But See You in Miami is so strong it’ll make you want to see him this weekend.
One of my very first Wacky Wednesday posts, back in late November 2014, was about a song by the late great song parodist Allan Sherman, "Pop Hates The Beatles." (I just fixed some broken YouTube links on that four-year-old post.)
Just last week Sherman (1934-1973) came up in conversation on a Facebook thread. It started out in a discussion of another foot soldier in the British Invasion, Petula Clark (who's currently touring the US at the age of 86!)
So I figured it's well past time to salute Camp Grenada's best-known camper again. Besides, his birthday is coming up on Nov. 30.. He would have been 84 -- two years younger than Petula Clark.)
Sunday, November 18, 2018 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Gone to Texas by Terry Allen
Frenchmen Street by The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
Girls on Bikes by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
Voodoo Walking by Mama Rosin with Hipbone Slim
Let's Turkey Trot by Little Eva
Hainted by Churchwood
Speedy Quick by Dirk Geil
The Corner of Fuck and You by The Grannies
Secret Rendezvous by The Chocolate Watchband
David Cassidy by Betty & The Werewolves
Nerve Disorder by The Vagoos
Bad Day by He Who Cannot Be Named
Miami Interlude by Charlie Pickett
Buzz Buzz Buzz by The Blasters
Work for a Jerk by A Pony Named Olga
Guv'ment by John Goodman
God Damn USA by Trixie & The Trainwrecks
Turkey Jive by The Hormonauts
Vicksburg by Johnny Dowd
When the Hammer Came Down by House of Freaks
Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife by Drive-By Truckers
Death Row by Mike Zito
Turkey and the Rabbit by T-Model Ford
Part of the Deal by Western Star
I Loved Her So by Me & Them Guys
November by The Rockin' Guys
Lee Harvey by T. Tex Edwards & The Hickoids
Two White Horses by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs
Garbage Patch by Ramblin' Deano
Aggie and the DA by Hamell on Trial
Wreck on the Highway by Stevie Tombstone
Unsatisfied by The Replacements
Thanksgiving by Loudon Wainwright III CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis